Computer memory generally refers to logical or physical storage used to provide applications and data on a temporary or permanent basis. Shared memory is usually accessible from multiple applications and/or devices and provides efficient communication between different computing resources.
In a physical computing system, shared memory may refer to a unit of random access memory (RAM) that is accessible from different central processing units (CPUs). In software, shared memory may be an area of RAM used by different processes for exchanging data. In virtualized computing environments, shared memory can be used to provide fast communication between a hypervisor and a virtual machine.